Concerned Citizens of Canberra Inc v Chief Executive (Planning and Land Authority) (No 2)

[2017] ACTCA 1

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Costs
3. › Public interest litigation
4. › Whether litigation is in the public interest
5. › Criteria for characterising proceedings as public interest litigation
6. › Whether departure from usual costs rule warranted
7. › Court Procedures Rules 2006 (ACT), rr 1720, 1721
1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Costs
3. › Costs follow the event
4. › General rule that successful party receives costs
5. › Whether special circumstances warrant departure
6. › Court Procedures Rules 2006 (ACT), r 1721
1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Security for costs
3. › Personal undertaking
4. › Whether undertaking created manifest injustice
5. › Right to be heard
6. › Whether person bound by undertaking denied opportunity to be heard

Quick Take

The case provides a useful compilation of the criteria for characterising litigation as 'public interest litigation' for costs purposes, applying the three-step approach from Caroona Coal Action Group. An incorporated association with a small membership, whose members live remotely from the subject site and have only intellectual or philosophical interests, will not satisfy the public interest litigation threshold. A person who voluntarily gives an undertaking for security for costs with knowledge of its consequences cannot later claim manifest injustice from the existence of that undertaking.